Using a multidimensional approach to poverty, the incidence of extreme poverty around the world is staggering. According to the UN Development Program’s 2014 Human Development Report, more than 15 percent of the world’s population (2.2 billion people) are living near or in multidimensional poverty. For those living in extreme poverty, many human rights are out of reach, making the elimination of extreme poverty not a question of charity, but an urgent human rights concern.

The Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Project houses the Center’s work that relates to extreme poverty and human rights. CHRGJ Faculty Director and Co-Chair Professor Philip Alston is the current UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. The Special Rapporteur is supported in his work by UN staff of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as two external advisors who are based at CHRGJ.

The Project seeks to explore the interconnection between extreme poverty and human rights through creating a platform for the mandate’s extensive activities and by generating related programming and research through contributions by Center staff, students, and other faculty on specific country or thematic topics. The current focus for related programming and research is on American poverty, both in connection with the Special Rapporteur’s official visit in December 2017, and ensuring civil society dialogue and strategic interventions beyond the visit.

Further CHRGJ work that falls within the Project and explores the interrelation between poverty and inequality is the Initiative on Inequality, the Global Economy, and Human Rights, launched in 2015 to critically examine the role of international human rights law in regulating the global economy and in countering its tendency to exacerbate inequalities.